Criminal Justice Criticized Study: Drug Help Cited As Top Need

Palm Beach County should spend $8 million a year to provide residents with access to private substance-abuse and mental-health treatment facilities.

It should spend between $5 million and $7 million to put together an integrated criminal justice computer network.

And it should spend at least $2 million a year for drug treatment and rehabilitation programs for use by judges in issuing pretrial releases of addicted defendants.

Those are three of the more costly recommendations presented on Thursday to members of Palm Beach County`s Criminal Justice Commission as part of a $218,000 study that found the county`s criminal justice system fragmented and ineffective.

Sheriff Richard Wille, a member of the commission, said he wondered how the programs could be implemented with current tight budgets.

``Ideas cost money, and I think that`s going to have to be given some consideration,`` Wille said. ``I`m afraid some of them won`t be done in our lifetime because of the cost factor.``

But Alan Kalmanoff, the consultant who presented the recommendations, said most do not involve large outlays of money. Of the report`s 75 recommendations, more than two-thirds are expected to have no cost or minimal cost.

``The key things are for people to work with other people in a systematic way,`` Kalmanoff said.

Many of the more expensive recommendations will provide cost savings over the long run, Kalmanoff said. Treatment and rehabilitation, for instance, will keep many from becoming repeat offenders and clogging up the court and jail systems, he said.

The recommendations will be discussed by the commission, which will then make its own recommendations to the appropriate government bodies. Commissioners, still concerned about flaws they found in the first phase of the report, want those items corrected by the middle of April.

Kalmanoff said the changes do not affect the substance of the recommendations. That surprised Wille, who had many criticisms concerning statistics used in the initial findings.

``I find it difficult to believe that all the statistics in that book are meaningless as far as the recommendations are concerned,`` Wille said.

Kalmanoff said the individual errors have not changed the overall thrust of the statistics.

Chief Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley remained pleased with the progress of the study. ``We wanted somebody to come in with some independence from outside and say this is my view,`` he said.

The study, paid for by the county and the Economic Council of Palm Beach County, was conducted by the Tallahassee-based MGT of America and the California-based Institute for Law and Policy Planning.

One of the chief recommendations of the report, and one that has only a minimal cost, deals with drug enforcement.

The county`s war on drugs is going nowhere fast, and it is time local criminal justice officials evaluate current practices before more money is spent indiscriminately, the report recommended.

``Take a step back and look at what you`re doing,`` Kalmanoff said. ``Drugs are driving the criminal justice system. ... If you`re going to spend all those bucks, you`ve got to look at the impact.``

The report recommended officials estimate the costs and benefits of drug enforcement and the effect that more or less enforcement would have on department operations and related crime. Such a review will help answer ``the larger questions of local drug enforcement strategy,`` although it may cause conflict ``by implicitly raising the issue of legalization,`` the study said.

Other recommendations included:

-- Consolidate many police services. ``There are no costs. There are tremendous savings,`` Kalmanoff said.

The Sheriff`s Office handles transportation of arrestees to the county jail. Other areas of consolidation might include major crime-scene investigations, drug enforcement and organized crime.

-- More interaction between police agencies. ``It can`t be an outside-the- system association of chiefs. It`s got to be inside the system,`` Kalmanoff said. ``So that all the police agencies in the county are meeting real regularly ... perhaps on a daily basis.``

-- Create a pretrial release agency that would be responsible for collecting information on arrestees to determine what, if any, alternatives to incarceration would be appropriate.

-- Develop a comprehensive pretrial appearance notification program to cut down on the number of people being picked up and jailed for failing to appear for prior court dates, usually on minor offenses.

-- Create a pretrial supervised release program with drug treatment for offenders needing it. The cost is estimated at $1 million for the first year with savings later.

RECOMMENDATIONS

A $218,000 study of Palm Beach County`s criminal justice system included 75 recommendations in law enforcement, probation, detention, drug enforcement and other areas. Some of the recommendations are:

-- Use magistrates and commissioners, now used in family court and some civil matters, in criminal cases for routine matters.

-- Change state law to limit prison gain time to a maximum 50 percent of an inmate`s sentence.

-- Create more programs like Police Athletic League to provide early intervention for youths at risk.

-- Add search and seizure and urinalysis as a condition of probation to high- risk offenders or those convicted of drug-related activity.

-- File charges on all provable driving-under-the-influence arrests, at least to assure early intervention for treatment and education.

SOURCE: Comprehensive Analysis of Palm Beach County`s Criminal Justice System and Services Related to Crime, prepared by MGT of America and the Institute for Law and Policy Planning